Posted:3rd Feb 2007I wouldn't deny a link but I would be careful about making simple statements about bullying or suicide.

It's the singling out of gay suicide or inspired bullying for very dubious agendas that I find offensive. Why were those websites been made. Why were ones like these?

gay suicide myth?

Bullying is endemic in all areas of human life, people don't pick on you because you're gay, they pick on you because the prevailing social code allows that particular group to be bullied. And bullying is one of humanities main ways of making itself feel better.

I prefer sex.

Censorship doesn't make bullying go away, I've never understood what is was for except another bunch of rules to obey and be punished by. Without freedom nothing is worth having.

Look at it another way perhaps, the use of the word has YOU concerned doesn't it? Makes me wonder how many people have examined their own and others attitudes to homosexuality because of the fashion for using the word. Certainly homophobia is now something the news reports on rather than participates in , which is something that wasn't true 30 years ago.

When calling someone gay would get you your head kicked in and people never used the word in polite company.

*no moves there are no moves there are no moves there are no moves there are no moves there are no*

Posted:3rd Feb 2007Interesting....so the gay teen suicide thing is a myth created to promote the radical homosexual agenda. Damn...sucked into believing it for years. The only real objection I had to using the term was based on an anti bullying perspective. and if that's invalid, then I"ll reexamine my attitude.

I wonder if the authors and proponents of hate crime legislation are aware of this?

Posted:4th Feb 2007I'm not making any claims about myths, every suicide is tragic and unique and should be dealt with accordingly.

"Why did he commit suicide? Because he was bullied."

"Why was he bullied? Because he was gay."

"He committed suicide because he was gay."

Stupid, yes? But people like simple answers.

My experience of bullying is that it has nothing to do with your sexuality, I was bullied in school long before that was an issue. I just didn't "fit in" despite my teachers advice that I try to. I still don't. And this makes you an easy target for the domination game that goes "I make myself feel better and confirm my social standing by attacking someone of a perceived lower status"

If someone calls me a f***ing poof or accuses me of being a child molester (fact: you're safest leaving your children with gay jewish males ages 20-30) they're doing it because they expect these words to hurt me personally so they can feel better about themselves/more powerful. Prejudices just give form to this instinct. Look how people in this country mock "chavs". It makes people feel secure I guess but one of the things I find most distressing about being human is that scapegoating seems built in to our psychology. You find civil rights campaigners dehumanising the religious far right in the same way that the far right views them. Stupid.

Another thing, while growing up I came into contact with the particular meme "one in ten people is gay" that famous little fact from Alfred Kinseys research. It made me feel a lot more secure in the world knowing that I wasn't totally alone and this "fact" has been used by gay rights campaigners as a way of normalising homosexuality. Imagine my dissapointment then when I discover his data was collected from amongst the inmates of the american penitentiary system... The true figures are closer to one in thirty or one in fourty.

The one in ten statistic is still used by the campaigners when estimating the teenage suicide rates by the way.

*no moves there are no moves there are no moves there are no moves there are no moves there are no*

Posted:4th Feb 2007Or....as in the case of a local 14 year old...he killed himself because even though he wasn't gay, he was teased enough about being gay that it obviously got to him. That case is actually mentioned half way down the page on the second link that I posted, and is the motivation for the anti bullying campaign that's currently active in our local school system...entitled "that's so gay is not ok"

Bullying may not have anything to do with your actual sexuality ( as *most" homosexuals come out of the closet just after high school graduation ) but with your perceived sexuality...which can be a real source of confusion if you're among the "questioning" segment of youth. Tell someone their a loser enough times, and they just might start to believe you.

I'm well aware that bullying isn't something that we as a society are going to stop, but we can at least try.

In the 1980's and 1990's a lot of demands were made by several different "minority" groups just as to how people like me ( straight white males ) should adjust out attitudes towards people who were somehow different, hence my mention of hate crime legislation. We had sooooo many groups claiming victim-hood at out hands, and were basically blamed for everything that was wrong with today's society,,,we were educated on diversity issues, we were given sensitivity training, and we had laws passed that denote that if I call someone a faggot, nigger, kike etc,,,then I'm in a whole lot more trouble than if I'd referred to someone as an asshat, dork, loser etc.

So along with the anti bullying issue, there's the attitude that the politically correct demanded and legislated we observe and until those demands and laws are overturned, the gay community's just going to have to live with guys like me thinking that using gay as a negative is wrong.

Posted:7th Feb 2007You guys in the States still have "demonstrations" ??? Up here in Canada I haven't seen one of those in years. Sure we have gay pride which is all about spinning flags while the marching band pumps out Madonna's latest hit, wearing leather chaps, and drag queen baseball, but ever since we gave the gay community all they asked for ( the latest being gay marriage ) they've nothing left to demonstrate about.